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Nationwide Survey Shows Most Americans Support Hunting and Fishing
by Mary Jane Williamson

National Hunting and Fishing Day was officially established in 1972 to celebrate sportsmen and their role in fostering conservation and the scientific management of natural resources and wildlife. This year those celebrating National Hunting and Fishing Day will also be able to celebrate at least a decade of public support for their activities, according to a nationwide poll.

The nationwide survey, conducted by Responsive Management of Harrisonburg, Virginia, found that support for hunting and fishing has remained strong over the past decade with approximately every 3 out of 4 Americans approving of legal hunting and more than 9 out of 10 approving of recreational fishing.

"We have been seeing public support for hunting increase in several states over the past decade where we had data but this is the first nationwide study where we could verify that public support has increased over the past decade. In 1995, 73 percent of Americans approved of hunting while in 2006, 78 percent approved of hunting. Support for fishing nationwide, as well as in numerous states where we have conducted studies, remains very high," says Mark Damian Duda, executive director of Responsive Management. Although approval of fishing has decreased slightly, dropping only 1.7 percentage points from 95 percent in 1995 to 93.3 percent in 2006, most Americans approve of recreational fishing.

The results of this survey reflect the opinions of randomly selected U.S. adult residents based on a scientific telephone survey of 813 Americans conducted from August 31 to September 9, 2006. The sampling error is 3.44 percentage points.

The poll was conducted as part of two larger projects�a book being written on sportsmen’s issues by Duda, Marty Jones, and Andrea Criscione of Responsive Management that was commissioned by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation and a study on the future of hunting and the shooting sports under a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

As Americans become more knowledgeable about the role of hunting in wildlife management as well as how much money hunting and fishing contributes to fish and wildlife conservation efforts, coupled with a visible increase in deer in urban areas and the need to actively manage their populations, Responsive Management’s research shows that the public continues to approve of hunting.

Officials in the hunting and fishing industries are encouraged by the public support, citing the important role that sportsmen play in a number of areas, including conservation and the economy. Steve Williams, current president of the Wildlife Management Institute and former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, noted, "Sportsmen are essential to wildlife protection and management. Game management programs, which are funded by sportsmen’s dollars, have brought back numerous wildlife species from unhealthy population levels, such as wild turkey, wood ducks, white-tailed deer, beaver, pronghorn antelope, and Canada geese to name a few. In addition, sportsmen’s dollars have purchased and managed millions of acres of fish and wildlife habitat benefiting all fish and wildlife species and the public who enjoy them."

Matt Hogan, executive vice president of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, pointed out, "Public support for hunting and fishing is crucial for conservation efforts. State fish and wildlife agencies have been and continue to be funded in large part by the contributions of sportsmen and women through license sales and excise tax payments on hunting and fishing equipment. To put it simply, without hunters and anglers, state fish and wildlife agencies would not be able to do their job conserving and managing wildlife for all Americans to enjoy."

Gordon Robertson, vice president of the American Sport Fishing Association, commented, "Hunting and fishing have major economic impacts on the U.S. economy. According to the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, sportsmen and women spend more than seventy billion dollars on hunting and fishing each year. Spreading that out across other sectors of the economy, sportfishing alone annually contributes $116 billion to the U.S. economy. It’s gratifying to know that the American public supports these activities with such a strong cultural heritage."

Responsive Management is a Virginia-based public opinion polling and survey research firm specializing in natural resources, fisheries, wildlife, outdoor recreation, and environmental issues and has been assessing public attitudes on these issues for 18 years. Surveys are conducted with scientific rigor according to the standards of the Council of American Survey Research Organizations. For more information, please visit the firm’s Web site: www.responsivemanagement.com.

Poll Data:
Do you approve or disapprove of legal hunting? (2006)
45.4% Strongly approve and 32.2% Moderately approve (77.6% Approve)
4.9% Neither approve nor disapprove; 1.2% Don’t know
8.0% Strongly disapprove and 8.3% Moderately disapprove (16.3% Disapprove)

Do you approve or disapprove of recreational fishing? (2006)
68.5% Strongly approve and 24.8% Moderately approve (93.3% Approve)
1.5% Neither approve nor disapprove
2.0% Strongly disapprove and 3.2% Moderately disapprove (5.2% Disapprove)

Do you approve or disapprove of legal hunting? (1995)
40% Strongly approve and 33% Moderately approve (73% Approve)
5% Neither approve nor disapprove / Don’t know
11% Strongly disapprove and 11% Moderately disapprove (22% Disapprove)

Do you approve or disapprove of legal fishing? (1995)
65% Strongly approve and 30% Moderately approve (95% Approve)
2% Neither approve nor disapprove / Don’t know
1% Strongly disapprove and 2% Moderately disapprove (3% Disapprove)

During each Aquarius mission, anyone with Internet access can watch live web cameras, read expedition journals from the aquanauts, view project summaries and pictures, and much more at the NURC/UNCW Aquarius web site: www.uncw.edu/aquarius

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Spiny Dogfish and Coastal Shark Management Board has approved the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Atlantic Coastal Sharks for public review and comment. Public hearings will be held between February 7 and March 14, 2008.  The details of those hearings will be announced once they have been scheduled.

The Draft FMP addresses the management of 39 shark species. It proposes management measures for state recreational and commercial shark fisheries, including permitted species, regions, seasons, quotas, possession limits, size limits, protection of nursing and pupping grounds, authorized gear, dealer reporting, research, display, finning, and bycatch reduction.

Coordinated state management is a vital step towards establishing healthy self-sustaining populations of Atlantic coastal sharks.  Many species have been in a depleted state and are vulnerable to collapse if fishing pressure continues as it has in recent years.  Most of these sharks utilize state water coastal estuaries and bays as pupping grounds and nurseries.  The Draft FMP proposes to protect depleted shark stocks while they are in these areas during the most vulnerable stages of their life cycles.  

Another goal of Draft FMP is to establish complementary state and federal shark management.  Currently some states mirror federal regulations for Atlantic sharks while other states have no management (other than spiny dogfish) or have regulations inconsistent with the federal FMP. Coordinating management between state and federal waters will close loopholes between jurisdictions and simplify regulations for law enforcement officials.

Fishermen and other interested groups are encouraged to provide input on the Draft FMP, either by attending public hearings or providing written comments.  Copies of the Draft FMP can be obtained via the Commission’s website at www.asmfc.org under Breaking News or by contacting the Commission at (202) 289-6400.  Public comment will be accepted until 5:00 PM on March 28, 2008, and should be forwarded to Chris Vonderweidt, Fisheries Management Plan Coordinator, 1444 Eye Street, NW, Sixth Floor, Washington, DC 20005; (202) 289-6051 (FAX) or at comments@asmfc.org (Subject line: Sharks).  For more information, please contact Chris Vonderweidt at (202) 289-6400 or cvonderweidt@asmfc.org.

Fisherman Dies While Fighting Tuna

A fisherman discovered an empty boat cruising off the North Carolina coast Tuesday morning with its harpoon line in the water.

When he reeled in the line, he found a live bluefin tuna speared on the end -- and the captain's entangled body.

The captain, Bruce Bartlett of South Plainfield, N.J., apparently harpooned the fish, then got his left leg caught in the 200-foot line, Coast Guard officials said. When the tuna swam away, Bartlett was pulled into the ocean off Morehead City and drowned.

Bartlett was a commercial fisherman who traveled up and down the coast, Coast Guard officials said. He was alone in the 35-foot boat, named Flat Calm, when he died, fighting a fish that can weigh from 200 to 500 pounds.

"They're not easy to handle by yourself," said Ensign Andy Green-wood, with the Coast Guard's Fort Macon group.

Greenwood said Bartlett's was one of several boats that left Morehead City early Tuesday. He was last seen at 8 a.m.

About 9:30 a.m., another fisherman found Bartlett's boat 13 miles offshore, its motor running. The man climbed aboard and pulled up about 150 feet of the line before finding Bartlett's body, Greenwood said. The catch was on the line, but it got away before Coast Guard officials arrived.

Efforts to reach Bartlett's family Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Anthony Ng of Winterville, a commercial fisherman who was also in the area Tuesday morning, said 6- and 7-foot swells were battering the boats.

He said many fishermen work alone, hauling in tuna on giant rods, then stabbing them with harpoons and chasing them until they tire. A single tuna can sell for thousands of dollars.

Ng said it is more profitable to work alone but, of course, more dangerous. "Those fish, they pull hard," he said. "All it takes is one slip."

The Coast Guard advises against fishing alone. But even having company can't always prevent accidents. In 1994, a man was pulled overboard during the Morehead City-based Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament. He had wrapped line around his arm and was trying to pull a fish aboard a 52-foot boat. His body was never found.

Controversial appointee exemplified revolving door between industry, anti-environmental lobby groups, and Bush administration

Tucson, Ariz. - The Center for Biological Diversity applauds today’s announcement by presidential appointee Gale Norton that she is resigning as Secretary of Interior. Norton used her post as the nation’s top environment official to dismantle wildlife and wilderness protections; expand oil drilling, mining, and logging on public lands; and squash efforts by government scientists to establish rational environmental policy. Under her tenure, agency morale declined to an all-time low and millions of acres of land were forever scarred.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit conservation organization with more than 18,000 members dedicated to protecting endangered species and wild places through science, policy, education, and environmental law.

ULTRALIGHT MIGRATION LEADS 18 ENDANGERED WHOOPING CRANES OVER THE SKIES
OF GEORGIA

Pike County, Ga. (December 5, 2006) - Eighteen whooping crane chicks
have crossed into the state of Georgia, continuing their journey from
Wisconsin to Florida by reaching Gordon County, Georgia on December 3,
2006. Today, the cranes covered 106.5 miles in a flight of just over two
hours to Pike County, Georgia.

The whooping cranes are on a 1,228-mile ultralight-guided migration
from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin to
Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge along Florida's Gulf Coast.
They left Wisconsin on October 5, following four ultralight aircraft.

To date, the birds have traveled 902.9 miles. The Whooping Crane
Eastern Partnership (WCEP), an international coalition of public and
private groups, is conducting this project in an effort to reintroduce
this endangered species in eastern North America. For more information
and to follow the whooping crane's migration, visit the WCEP web site
at www.bringbackthecranes.org.

"The State of Georgia is a key partner in this unprecedented effort
to reintroduce whooping cranes into the eastern flyway," said Sam
Hamilton, Southeast Regional Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, a WCEP founding partner. "We are grateful for the efforts of
the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and our other state
colleagues in helping to make this project a success."

Background

There are now 66 migratory whooping cranes in the wild in eastern North
America - including the first whooping crane chicks to hatch in the wild
in Wisconsin in more than a century.

The two wild whooping crane chicks hatched on June 22 at the Necedah
National Wildlife Refuge. The wild-hatched crane chicks stuck close to
their parents at Necedah NWR for much of the summer until fledging, or
gaining their flight feathers, in early September. One of the chicks
stayed behind when its parents and sibling moved from their territory,
and as of today that chick has not been located. The other chick, a
female, was leg-banded so that she can be tracked by WCEP biologists.

The ultralight-led Class of 2006 includes the first crane hatched from
the reintroduced eastern migratory whooping crane population. Hatched on
May 7 at the U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research
Center in Laurel, Md., Crane 2-06's parents are whooping cranes 13 (a
male) and 18 (a female) from the ultralight-led crane Class of 2002. In
addition to the 18 birds being led south by ultralights, biologists from
the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service reared four whooping cranes at Necedah NWR that were released in
the company of older cranes in hopes that the young birds learn the
migration route, part of WCEP's "Direct Autumn Release" program,
which supplements the successful ultralight migrations.

In 2001, project partner Operation Migration's pilots led the first
whooping crane chicks, conditioned to follow their ultralight
surrogates, south from Necedah NWR to Chassahowitzka NWR. Each
subsequent year, WCEP biologists and pilots have conditioned and guided
additional groups of juvenile cranes to Chassahowitzka.

The whooping crane chicks that take part in the reintroduction project
are hatched at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland. There,
the young cranes are introduced to ultralight aircraft and raised in
isolation from humans. To ensure the impressionable cranes remain wild,
project biologists and pilots adhere to a strict no-talking rule,
broadcast recorded crane calls and wear costumes designed to mask the
human form whenever they are around the cranes.

New classes of cranes are brought to Necedah NWR each June to begin a
summer of conditioning behind the ultralights to prepare them for their
fall migration. Pilots lead the birds on gradually longer training
flights at the refuge throughout the summer until the young cranes are
deemed ready to follow the aircraft along the migration route.

Most graduated classes of whooping cranes spend the summer in central
Wisconsin, where they use areas on or near the Necedah National Wildlife
Refuge, as well as various state and private lands. Reintroduced
whooping cranes have also spent time in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois,
Michigan and other states.

Project staff from the International Crane Foundation and the Service
track and monitor southbound cranes in an effort to learn as much as
possible about their unassisted migrations and the habitat choices they
make along the way. The birds are monitored during the winter in Florida
and tracked as they make their way north in the spring. ICF and Service
biologists, along with Wisconsin DNR biologists, continue to monitor the
birds while they are in their summer locations.

Whooping cranes were on the verge of extinction in the 1940s. Today,
there are only about 500 birds in existence, 350 of them in the wild.
Aside from the 66 Wisconsin-Florida birds, the only other migrating
population of whooping cranes nests at the Wood Buffalo National Park in
the Northwest Territories of Canada and winters at the Aransas National
Wildlife Refuge on the Texas Gulf Coast.

A non-migrating flock of approximately 55 birds lives year-round in
central Florida. The remaining 150 whooping cranes are in captivity in
zoos and breeding facilities around North America.

Whooping cranes, named for their loud and penetrating unison calls,
live and breed in wetland areas, where they feed on crabs, clams, frogs
and aquatic plants. They are distinctive animals, standing five feet
tall, with white bodies, black wing tips and red crowns on their heads.

WCEP asks anyone who encounters a whooping crane in the wild to please
give them the respect and distance they need. Do not approach birds on
foot within 600 feet; try to remain in your vehicle; do not approach in
a vehicle within 600 feet or, if on a public road, within 300 feet.
Also, please remain concealed and do not speak loudly enough that the
birds can hear you. Finally, do not trespass on private property in an
attempt to view whooping cranes.

Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership founding members are the
International Crane Foundation, Operation Migration Inc., Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the
U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and
National Wildlife Health Center, the National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation, the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, and the
International Whooping Crane Recovery Team.

Many other flyway states, provinces, private individuals and
conservation groups have joined forces with and support WCEP by donating
resources, funding and personnel. More than 60 percent of the
project's estimated $1.8 million annual budget comes from private
sources in the form of grants, public donations and corporate sponsors.

For more information on the project, its partners and how you can help,
visit the WCEP website at http://www.bringbackthecranes.org.

Greenpeace launches first public pirate fishing vessel ‘list of shame’

Rome, Italy, 7 March 2007 - Greenpeace today launched a first global
database of blacklisted, illegal fishing vessels, in a bid to tackle the
huge problem of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing, a $9
billion rogue industry which is having a devastating effect on fish
stocks and biodiversity in some of the most ecologically important areas
of the world’s oceans.

The Greenpeace database (http://oceans.greenpeace.org/blacklist), which
was launched at the meeting of the committee on Fisheries of the Food
and Agriculture Organisations (FAO) in Rome, aims to publicly identify
vessels which are involved in so-called ‘pirate fishing’, to expose the
lack of action by the authorities to prevent the illegal trade.

Today, Greenpeace also released a report (2) showing that the attempts
at voluntary measures to curb pirate fishing by governments have had
little effect on the levels of illegal fishing in some of the poorest
and most desperate areas of action in the world, particularly the west
coast of Africa.

"The fact that Greenpeace has to publish a global database of
blacklisted illegal fishing vessels demonstrates clearly just how little
concrete action states have taken to stop this pillage of our oceans,"
Sari Tolvanen of Greenpeace International. "What’s needed now is an
official body to take charge of the policing of the worlds’ oceans and
make publicly available the information of both illegitimate and
unlicensed fishing vessels. Until this happens, we have little hope of
stopping the devastation which pirate fishing brings."

The Greenpeace report shows that six years after the member countries of
the FAO approved an International Plan of Action to curb illegal
fishing, the problem is very far from being solved. It includes evidence
gathered last year when the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, spent two months
documenting the activities of foreign fleets off the coast of Guinea
Conakry (3). That investigation discovered that almost half of the 92
fishing vessels encountered in Guinea’s waters were fishing illegally,
or linked to illegal fishing activities. It has been estimated that
sub-Saharan Africa loses around $1 billion a year due to the activities
of such illegal trawling fleets.

"The measures needed to stamp out pirate fishing are well known. Action
is required at all levels of the chain of custody, from the net in the
water to the fish on the shelves of supermarkets", said Sebastian
Losada, Greenpeace Oceans campaigner. "International cooperation,
binding laws on port control, as well as a global register of fishing
vessels and adequate sanctions are among the tools that Governments need
to put in place to act against the pirate fleets that are literally
stealing the food of some of the poorest people in the world and
destroying our marine ecosystems".

Greenpeace campaigners attending the United Nations fisheries meeting in
Rome demanded that governments must translate the existing voluntary
frameworks and international initiatives into hard law. The
international environmental organisation also demanded that the special
requirements of developing countries in fighting illegal fishing be
taken into account.

Contacts

Sebastian Losada, Greenpeace Spain Oceans Campaigner, +34 626998254
Sari Tolvanen, Greenpeace International Oceans Campaigner, in Rome.
+31655125480

(1) http://oceans.greenpeace.org/blacklist
(2) "Witnessing the plunder 2006. How illegal fish from West African
waters finds its way to the EU ports and markets", available at
www.greenpeace.org
(3) The Esperanza documented pirate fishing in West Africa as part of
the Defending Our Oceans expedition, a 15-month expedition, the biggest
the organisation has ever undertaken, to show the threats to the oceans
and outline solutions to the oceans environmental crises.
http://blacklist.greenpeace.org/